


Remote

by ewinfic



Series: Remote [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Gen, M/M, Retcon, Soulmates, Telepathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-07
Updated: 2015-07-12
Packaged: 2018-04-08 05:53:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 13
Words: 17,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4293240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ewinfic/pseuds/ewinfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For a prompt:</p><p>"A world where, when you meet your soulmate, you begin to share a mind. So, reading each other's thoughts, feeling what the other feels, etc. Bucky and Steve have been soulmates almost their entire lives...."</p><p>(Causes changes to the plot of Winter Soldier.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

He could handle the cold. He'd spent years frozen, and anyway his body didn't really feel the cold; he could tell the cold was there, but noticing it and _feeling_ it were two different things.

What he had a hard time with was the solitude. Wherever Bucky was, he was alone. Had been alone, for what seemed ages now. It was an entirely different kind of cold. Steve knew, because Bucky knew, that when he emerged from the freezer, he would be among people again, and yet alone.

_I am changed; I am not what I was. There is nothing on Earth like me._

Steve woke in the night with these thoughts in his mind, reaching out to nothing in the darkness. _Bucky, I know exactly how you feel. You are not alone. I'm like you. I'm here for you._ Not that being here did either of them any good; Steve needed to be wherever Bucky was. _Please God let me find him._ He'd said the short prayer so many times that it came to mind every few minutes now. _Let me find him._ If only there were more information to go on... most of the time, Steve knew that Bucky was frozen in a chamber, and nothing more.

Steve also woke in the night with sharp pains running through his arm, pain like lightning that sped up and down and never localized, so you could never get used to it. That was worse, because then he knew that Bucky was awake. Awake, and doing terrible things somewhere. _Somewhere._

The touch of his mind was so different, since Hydra had changed him. Steve would have thought that nothing in existence could change Bucky's essential nature; he had relied upon that nature all his life. Of the two of them, Bucky was more solidly himself. Steve was more adaptable. It had it's benefits; he had reconciled himself to his new body within minutes, and the new age he lived in had taken all of his adaptability to face. But for Bucky, having his body changed meant a feeling of alien distance from himself at all times. That helped him in his current work, but it was hell for Steve to experience his friend changing without the resources for tolerating that change. All Bucky ever felt (when he was awake) was that he wasn't supposed to be whatever he was, and there was no way to fix it.

Steve felt Bucky's frozen prison. He felt Bucky's torture. He felt the way his mind was reworked and rewritten, again and again until neither of them felt at home inside a brain that had once been as pure and solid and beautiful as a diamond. He felt Bucky shattered and broken and glued back together.

Steve felt Bucky kill, and that was the worst thing of all.

He was never sure who the victims were. Sometimes the news told him, the timing too close to be coincidence, the methodology too familiar. After several years, he had stopped obsessing over stopping the killings; there was no way to do so until he found Bucky.

One thing that was reassuring and maddening at once: he could feel Bucky's sense of the wrongness of what he was doing. No matter how Hydra warped and molded him, they couldn't change him completely. But they could change him enough to force him to act the way they wanted him to. Deep inside Bucky's mind, a shadow of his old self was screaming in agony at the things he saw himself doing. Steve could feel it, could feel the way Bucky's two selves refused to reconcile, could feel the way it caused a poisonous ingrowth of hate and fear that grew and grew. Steve sensed that Bucky would not survive for much longer like this. The frozen periods were all that had kept him alive. Before long, even that wouldn't work anymore. Bucky's mind would destroy itself. If that happened, Steve knew that it would destroy his own mind... that was almost reassuring, to know that if Bucky descended into madness, so would he.

 _Let me find him. Please let me find him._ Every cell in Steve's body was bent to the task, every atom of his soul. Loki had been a distraction; once he was finished, Steve pursued his search with renewed urgency.

Half his soul was locked in ice, and when it wasn't, it was tainted by an utter repugnance for its own existence. Bucky hated himself. He _hated_ himself.

Steve lay awake in the night, feeling either ice surrounding him, or far far worse, feeling air and light and the requirement to kill, and Steve called out to Bucky. _I love you. Don't hate yourself; I love you, I have always loved you, I will always love you. You are my heart. Please, please don't destroy yourself. Someone loves you, no matter what you have become, no matter what you have done._ He would repeat it in a whisper hoarse with tears: _I love you. I love you. I love you._

_I WILL find you._


	2. Chapter 2

_I love you._

Blood as cold and thick as a bog morass began to churn its way through the soldier's veins, pumped slowly by a heart that burned and ached and struggled against its frozen confinement. In a few minutes, he would be able to open his eyes. For now, he was in the dark, still cold, barely aware. It was the closest he ever came to REM sleep.

Someone was with him.

It was only ever during this in-between period that the soldier could feel the presence of the Other. He desperately wished that he could open his eyes and look at whoever it was, but he knew that once his eyes opened, he would be too awake; the Other would disappear. The Other was the only company he ever had. Not a scientist who worked him like a machine, nor a giver of orders to be obeyed, nor a mission target, but some kind of friend. Once upon a time, he had known what a friend was.

The Other was speaking. It always said something like this:

"I love you, Bucky. I miss you... you are my soul. You always were."

The soldier didn't know who Bucky was, but he had the vague sense that the Other was speaking to _him_ , so he listened as though that were the truth. There was hope in the words, and faith, and trust, and so many things that the soldier could only barely recognize as things that he had once known. The Other made him feel safe and loved and warm even in the cold thaw of waking.

This was the only happiness the soldier now knew.

But now he was waking up.

His heart was revving up like an engine, from a mutter to a roar. When it was near the breaking point, his blood finally began to warm and the rest of his body was slowly soaked in a paralyzing agony of pins and needles as his nerves were tormented to life. He laid there, waiting to be able to move. The more he could move, the quicker the pain would dissipate... he waited, and inside of his mind he screamed, a sound that escaped his mouth as the slightest of sighs. His lungs were not yet able to hold the air to support his voice.

By the time he had a voice, the pain was edging away. He began to flex his arms and legs. The initial pain of it burned through him like a current, and then eased as he continued to move.

By the time he sat up, his eyes and ears and nose were online, registering everything around him. The light was too bright; his overly acute eyes preferred the dark now. Sounds clashed against his eardrums in a chaos until he began to weed through the noise to determine what was happening... men around him were murmuring, there was the clink of hardware and the humming of machines. Smell was the worst of all. Some remnant of the self he once was remarked to his own mind, _Gee, a super-sensitive nose, what a GREAT gift for someone who's gonna be around dead people and firearms most of the time._

Lightning shot up and down his left arm as he flexed the metal plates. He could tell by the sound that there was still ice in the circuits, condensed from the moisture of the remnants of his old arm, still buried beneath the hard surface. There was a brief juxtaposition in his mind of the feeling of his old arm, phantomlike and strange, and the feeling of his metal arm, which was painful but satisfyingly real. He clung to it. The skin around the shoulder joint where the metal joined flesh was raw and flaking. He could smell the drugs they smeared on him to keep his skin from rotting around the metal, the greasy film they sprayed on him to keep him from getting frostbite, and his own skin. He stank.

They would let him take a shower soon, but it wouldn't stop them from smearing the drugs on his shoulder again. His body always stank. Bile rose briefly in the back of his throat; he swallowed it down. There was nothing to vomit up, anyway. His stomach would soon start to grind and gnaw on itself until they gave him his food; hard bricks of vitamin and protein meal that grated against his teeth and felt like greasy sawdust going down. Nothing here smelled or tasted good. Nothing here _was_ good, including him.

_Don't hate yourself. I love you._

The thought rang out in his head like a siren, causing him to jerk in his seat and look around wildly. _Who said that?_ Nobody around him noticed, they were too busy attaching electrodes to him and reading the results.

_Where are you? I have to find you._

His breath whistled harshly through his nose, and he could smell fear wafting off his own skin. Vaguely, he remembered his dream, the Other person. It sounded like the same voice. But he had never heard it before while awake.

_Bucky, I'm coming to find you. Just hang on, okay?_

A tiny, venomous sting lit at the base of his thoughts and crawled out into the light. It was hope. He squashed it almost violently inside his head. There was no place for hope here. Hope had died long ago in him.

_Don't say that! Don't give up!_

He was panting now, and the technicians were beginning to notice, giving him quick covert glances, bright with fear. They knew his history. Amid his long list of designated assassinations he had also killed five techs, usually while thrashing himself awake, or during surgery because they could never completely anesthetize him. He felt his own unhinged sense of time and space threaten to engulf him, and he wanted to lash out. He was unhinged; unsteady. He was broken.

_No. I'm going to find you and we're going to fix you. I swear to you, Bucky, we're going to fix you._

The soldier looked around him at the technicians, the lab-coated doctors, the men in suits at the other end of the room who were in charge of it all and who would soon tell him who and where to kill, and he thought, _Who the hell is Bucky?_

_You're my friend, Bucky. I love you. I remember who you are. You will, too._

Something about the insistence of the voice in his mind triggered a feeling somewhat like hysteria. He began to do something that he hadn't done in seventy years, something that nobody in the room could possibly have expected; something utterly bizarre.

He began to laugh.

The technicians immediately backed away, and the doctors exchanged alarmed glances. The men in suits looked at him with critical puzzlement. Something about the looks on their faces made him laugh harder. Soon he was curled up, pressing his arms into his belly and howling with laughter, unable to stop...

He felt the plunge of a needle into his right shoulder, and everything went black.

* * *

They wiped him, and wiped him again, and nothing seemed to help. In fact, his symptoms worsened every time his brain heard the voice from a dead silence; twitches, laughter, a constant panic level of emotion, even occasional tears. Finally, the doctors simply let him be for a little while. They set him loose in the training tank and kept tabs on his behavior. The twitches seemed to slowly go away.

The soldier simply needed time to grow accustomed to the constant voice in his mind. In a way, the constancy of it helped. It seemed that no person could keep up such a steady barrage of hopeful positivity; after a while he could mentally tune it down to a senseless hum and go about his business of efficient murder. But then the voice would quiet for a moment and it broke the rhythm. He heard it freshly when it started up again.

_Bucky, where are you? Come back to me..._

It was like going insane, except that the soldier knew perfectly well he wasn't sane to begin with. Perhaps he was going sane. He didn't try to remember what being sane felt like; whenever he tried to remember his past, he would suffer a sudden feeling of vertigo, a spike of nausea and the sensation of falling. It was fatal to his work, and in his line fatal often meant actual fatalities. Hydra didn't care about collateral casualties, but he did. He didn't know why he did. Perhaps it was an obsession with efficiency. In any case, memory was a luxury he did not permit himself to indulge in.

The voice was just a distraction, along with the sound of the wind or the smell of traffic, or the arcs of pain in his arm and shoulder. He could use it to help him focus.

Except...

_I love you._

It was like a mental hiccup, every time the voice said that one; it caught at him like a snag in fabric. _Where are you,_ he was very familiar with; he asked it of his victims every mission. _Come back to me,_ likewise easy to parse out and ignore. Even _Bucky, you are my friend_ could be safely catalogued; he didn't know who Bucky was, but presumably Bucky was capable of friendship without it having anything to do with the soldier. But _I love you_ caused the soldier problems. It made no sense. He couldn't remember what love was anymore, could not even try. He only knew that it did not, could not apply to him. And yet the voice kept saying it. He estimated that 10% of the messages he received had something to do with love. It outweighed every other piece of information. Always, always it tripped him up. Sometimes the voice said it repeatedly like a mantra or a spell; when that happened, the soldier felt like he was drowning. He hid it from the technicians as well as he could.

Months passed; he went back into the freezer and came out again, and the voice was still there. It became background noise.

But _I love you_... it made his insides churn when he heard it. He couldn't get used to it. Always, always he heard those particular words and had to puzzle about what they meant. They made no sense. But the voice was insistent that it loved him. It loved _him_. The stone-cold killer, the tool, the object, the asset, the predator. It loved him.

It began to frustrate him. One day, he found himself even mentally arguing with it.

_I love you._

_No, you don't. Stop saying that._

_Yes, I do. I love you._

_You love someone else. Not me. I don't exist._

_Yes, you do._

_Who is it that you think I am?_

The voice gave him a mental image of a man who just barely resembled him in the face.

_Bucky_ , it said.

_That's not me. You don't know me._

_I will when I find you. And I'll love you then, too._

_No, you won't. If you ever meet me, it will be because I'm there to kill you._

_Then I will die loving you._

The soldier blinked; his eyes were wet. He quickly brushed the back of his hand across his face, scrubbing the tears off. The voice made him feel angry, helpless, vulnerable... it made him feel _human_ , and that was another unaffordable luxury, just like memory.

No human could do what he did and be what he was. The voice had to be mistaken. It _had_ to be.

But it sounded so sure of itself.

He put the rifle to his shoulder, sighted, and fired. For a moment, his soul was numb, and he felt normal again. Then he noticed it; a feeling of pain. Not just pain, but grief. An enormous well of grief and frustration and love bent him to his knees. He huddled over, shaking, waiting for it to pass. He knew it wasn't his own emotion he was feeling, but that didn't make it any easier.

He knew that Pierce only had one response to anything that went wrong with the soldier, and that was to wipe his mind, which was unpleasant. The soldier was determined to keep his distress to himself.

Then one day he realized it wasn't the fear of pain that kept him quiet. He was keeping his secret because, deep down, he wanted to know who it was that was talking to him.

_I need to find you._

_I think I need to find you, too. And possibly kill you. But at least find you._

The image of Washington D.C. floated in his mind, and then an apartment building, and then a face. Something about the face made him tremble slightly, it made him feel sick. He knew that whoever it was, it was someone who he couldn't remember.

Which could only mean that it was someone he knew.


	3. Chapter 3

_"I must say I'm surprised at you, Rogers, keeping a secret like this for so long from so many people."_

_"What can I say? I guess you've been a terrible influence on me."_

_"Or a good one. Time was when you would have put it out on the loudspeaker that Hydra was still in existence and activating assassins. I keep disabling the intercom switch every time I know you're coming to my office."_

_"Maybe I should. I just..."_

_"I would suggest not doing that."_

_"I know you would, Nick."_

_"I'd like to think that the situation can be contained. But not until we find him. Any luck on that?"_

_"He's on ice right now, so I can't tell, but he's been very active over the past few months."_

_"So I've heard. Rogers, you do know it's not going to be easy to protect him, right? Even if we do find him. Keeping him a secret will only work for so long, and if I'm saying that, you know it must be true. You may find that you've compromised your sterling honesty for nothing."_

_"I understand. It's worth trying. He's not... what he is... on purpose. We're linked. I know what's been done to him. Do you have an Other?"_

_"Never been that lucky. I've heard only three percent of people find their Other during their lives."_

_"Then it's not something you would understand."_

_"What wouldn't I understand? You think I keep secrets because of my enemies. You're wrong. I keep secrets because of my friends."_

* * *

Bucky was awake. Steve had been able to feel it all day long, like a dagger in his mind, shining and sharp. More than that, Bucky was close by. Maddeningly close. Steve could smell Washington, the humid southern air warm and heavy in Bucky's nostrils. He could hear the sounds of the city. He'd felt Bucky since that morning, and it had caused the usual restlessness in him. He had wandered around the city like a vagrant. _Come on, Bucky, where are you? Give me a hint._ Lately, Bucky had even been answering his call, conversing with him the way that they used to do, mind to mind for endless hours when they were young. He was different, now. Colder. But it was unmistakably his mental voice.

Bucky had said that he might kill him. Steve had to acknowledge it as a possibility. Hydra had done a fair job of wrecking him. The idea that Bucky might kill Steve before Steve had a chance to help him was what frightened Steve the most.

Or someone else might kill Bucky, but that seemed a dim possibility given the machine they had turned him into. Whatever else Bucky was now, he was effective.

But something had just gone wrong. Steve could feel it; the unmistakable tang of surprised disappointment. Bucky had just failed to kill someone. _Who was it? Who was your target?_

And for the first time, Bucky told him. The face of Nick Fury flashed through Steve's mind like a meteor, burning and then gone.

Steve felt his blood chill. The one other person in SHIELD who knew that Hydra was still active was Fury. Steve realized that he had made a deadly mistake, letting Bucky know where he was. It was unforgivable. Now Fury was in Hydra's crosshairs, and the only possible source of information was Steve's link to Bucky. Blinded by love, he had been feeding information to the enemy.

Steve wandered the streets looking for Fury. It didn't take him long to find where Fury had escaped. The streets were blocked off (but never to Captain America, law enforcement knew him on sight and gave him access) for miles in every direction, traffic ensnared in a gridlock by the wrecks of police cruisers and then there it was, a black SUV. Steve looked inside and saw Fury's escape route. _Clever._ But of course Fury was nowhere nearby. Where would he go?

Who would he trust?

Nobody. Fury never trusted anybody. But he and Steve were the only ones who knew why the hit had been put out, so that meant that he would try to find... _Oh, no. He couldn't have been stupid enough to... please, no._

Steve ran at top speed back to his apartment, the same place he had practically given Bucky directions to, weeks ago. Maybe they had wiped him; maybe Bucky had forgotten.

Maybe pigs would fly. Steve could always hope.

He made it to the apartment and practically flew up the stairs, going so fast that he actually felt winded. He passed the pretty blonde girl next door, but didn't have time to chat; he touched his door. There was the sound of music on the other side of it. Fury was there. Steve unlocked and opened the door, cautiously moving into the apartment, afraid to turn on any lights. He didn't know where Bucky might be, but Bucky was definitely still awake. Steve did his best to keep his mind closed.

"I don't remember giving you a key." He tried to keep his voice normal.

"You really think I'd need one?" Fury looked battered and exhausted. "My wife kicked me out."

Steve paused. He knew it was a lie, but he didn't know why. "I didn't know you were married."

"There's a lot you don't know about me." Fury flashed the face of his phone at Steve. EARS EVERYWHERE, it said, and Steve realized that his place was bugged. He mentally cursed Fury, wondering whether his whispers at night had been loud enough to be captured by the bugs, wondering just how much of his devotion to Bucky was under scrutiny by various SHIELD members in sound-proofed kiosks downtown.

He didn't have time to realize much else, though, because he suddenly felt Bucky so close by that it felt like the force of a battering ram against his mind. Steve dropped to one knee, holding his head in his hands. He had been reaching out so hard and for so long that the sound of Bucky's awareness in his mind was overwhelming. Thunderclaps of thought clashed against his own thoughts, making a chaos.

Too late, he thought about pulling Fury to a better covered position; there was a bang as several shots were fired through the wall. Bucky had known exactly where to shoot, because Steve had been looking right at Fury.

Steve pulled Fury into the next room... Fury was trying to tell him something, but he couldn't pay attention...

"Captain Rogers? I'm Agent 13, SHIELD Special Service."

"Kate?" Steve shook his head, desperately trying to think. The girl rounded the corner with practiced care, keeping her weapon lifted slightly, but ready to use.

"I'm assigned to protect you."

"On whose order?" Steve demanded.

She looked in shock down at the floor. "His." She dropped to Fury's side and pulled out a COM unit. "Foxtrot is down, he's unresponsive, I need EMTs!"

The reply snapped back, "And the shooter?"

"Tell him I'm in pursuit," Steve said, hoping Kate or whoever she was could handle the situation, but knowing he'd never get a better chance. He grabbed his shield and jumped through the window to the next building. He could see Bucky running along the roof; he catapulted himself through the office hallways and finally through another window and then...

_BUCKY, STOP! IT'S ME!_ He threw his mind at Bucky like a fist.

Bucky stopped in the darkness, turned halfway and fell to his knees, holding his head. Steve knew he was feeling the same thing that Steve had felt back at the apartment; the full force of their connection snapping into place.

Steve stumbled, trying not to fall. He looked at Bucky for the first time in seventy years. Black outfit, face mask, shaggy hair. And there was the metal arm, shining and dangerous. But it was him. It was _him_. Steve staggered forward, trying to get to him.

_WHO ARE YOU_

The thought was a roar, and Steve had to close his eyes momentarily, but he didn't stop moving forward. "You're about to find out." He reached Bucky, touched him on the shoulder...

_DON'T TOUCH ME_

"Bucky, look at me! You know me!"

_NO I DON'T_

"Bucky, you've known me your whole life." Steve reached forward and pulled off Bucky's mask, and saw his face. Bucky's eyes were shadowed with grease paint, but it was him. Steve forgot everything else, forgot Fury back at the apartment, forgot the way Bucky was changed, forgot _everything_. All he could think about was how whole he suddenly felt. He grabbed Bucky with both hands and pulled him into a rough embrace.

_Who are you?_ This time, Bucky's mental voice sounded weak and bewildered.

_Steve Rogers. Your friend, your soul mate, and you are my everything and you're HERE, you're finally HERE and we can be together again and..._

Bucky pulled away hard, stumbling back from Steve's grip, and pulled out a knife. "I don't know you," he rasped harshly. And he lunged at Steve. They grappled, and Steve was finally given the chance to feel just how strong Bucky had become; it was all he could do to fend off the tip of the knife, even with his shield. Steve knew that fighting Bucky was not a good idea. Steve had to be careful not to hurt Bucky. Bucky had no such compunction. Their feet scraped the concrete dangerously close to the edge... then Bucky pulled out a gun.

Steve put all of the force of his mind behind the order. _STOP IT RIGHT THE FUCK NOW._

Bucky stopped dead, staring. He dropped the gun.

He said, "I've never heard you use that word in your entire life."

Then he fainted.


	4. Chapter 4

_"Why was Fury in your apartment?"_

_"I don't know."_

_"You're a terrible liar, even over the phone."_

_"Just tell me what happened."_

_"What's to tell? He died on the operating table. You weren't here."_

_"... I think I need your help."_

_"Rogers, why weren't you here?"_

_"I couldn't be."_

_"I'm going to need a better answer than that."_

_"I'll give you one, if you'll meet me."_

_"Rogers..."_

_"Just meet me. Please. My apartment, one hour. Can you do that?"_

_"... Sure."_

* * *

The soldier woke. It was a normal waking, he wasn't frozen. But he was naked. It was dark, and he was in the back of a car; he was being transported somewhere.

Steve was in the front seat. _Steve._ The soldier knew the man's name, now. He could feel that name echo through him like the shock wave of a bullet. Steve was his friend. The word made no sense, the phrase made no sense, but it was true, somehow. He knew Steve. That also made no sense.

What made the least sense was the fact that he wasn't afraid. And he realized that he had been trapped in fear for so long that he had forgotten what the absence of it felt like. It was like a surcease from pain. He could breathe again. How long had it been? And why wasn't he afraid?

_Because you're with me, that's why._ "Rise and shine, buddy." Steve's voice bore the artificial calm of someone trying to soothe someone else.

There was another person in the car, in the front passenger seat, a woman. The soldier sat up abruptly, some of the fear returning. He didn't know her.

The woman turned in her seat, a sleek curtain of dark red hair shifting around her face. "You have no weapons. I do. Try anything and I'll prove it."

"Hey, easy. We're all friends here." Steve's voice held a note of strain.

"I'm not sure we are."

The soldier calculated how much force it would take to snap her neck and get the gun from her.

_Bucky, no._ The thought was steely enough to hurt.

The soldier winced. He decided to bide his time for now. Steve had some way of controlling his thoughts... then, like a puzzle piece falling into place, he made the connection between Steve and the Other. This was the man, then. The one who said he loved him. The one who was capable of sending such a constant stream of encouraging messages through whatever connection it was they mysteriously had... his head began to swim as memories tried to surface. He shook himself to full awareness. "Why... where are my clothes?"

Steve said, "We figured they probably contained a tracer of some kind, so we stripped you. There are some fresh clothes beside you, on the floor board. Sorry, it's just surprisingly hard to dress someone in a comatose state."

"Don't worry, we didn't molest you." There was a sly note in the woman's voice. "... much."

The soldier studied her for a moment. Evidently she was in the habit of covering her fear with humor, but she was definitely afraid; he could smell it on her. Then the analytical side of him gave way to something else. It had been years since he had been this close to a woman without immediately killing her. She smelled like... he was intensely aware of his nudity for a moment, and hastily reached into the floorboard for the clothing there. Jeans and a shirt, boxers. They were all soft, obviously worn in by someone else, and somewhat loose, fitted for comfort rather than armament. The fabric felt strange on his skin. It snagged here and there on the metal plates of his arm.

It smelled like Steve. These were some of Steve's clothes. They gave him a ticklish feeling, like the touch of a stranger. Almost, it made him feel like another person. Hadn't he once worn...? The memory wouldn't surface. More nausea. He would have to wait.

Had Hydra bugged his suit? Most likely. But more likely than that...

"Stop the car."

"What? Why?" Steve glanced back at him.

"Stop the car," the soldier repeated. "You missed something."

Steve and the woman exchanged worried glances, and Steve slowed the car, pulling it over to the shoulder of the highway.

The soldier said, "I need a tool. A screwdriver, a knife, something."

Steve handed him a pocket knife. The soldier could feel the the woman's surprise; he was a little surprised himself, that Steve would trust him not to... not to what? Not to kill them both?

Could he even do that? He wasn't sure he could kill Steve.

He knew he didn't want to. And it wasn't his mission, anyway. He had completed that already. He didn't have a new one. He always returned to the lab after a mission because that was his home; because there was nowhere else to go for a creature like him. Because he had no other purpose. Because only they knew how to take care of him. Out here, his body would begin to reject his arm soon, and some of his strength and acuity would fade as he sweated out the steroids and serums. Not all of it, but some. Out here, it was likely that he would die. _But until then..._

Until then, he could do as he wished.

He unfolded the knife and pried open the tenth and eleventh side plate of his arm. The pain was acute, but nothing he hadn't felt before. He held the knife in place with his teeth, keeping the plates separated, and dug into the opening with his fingers... _there_.

He yanked out the tracking chip and put it into his metal hand, then slowly and deliberately crushed it.

He looked up to see two faces looking at him in surprise. He quietly folded the knife and handed it back to Steve.

The woman blinked, and then glared at Steve. "I told you it was probably in his arm."

"Well, what were we supposed to do? It was attached to him, we couldn't exactly leave without it."

The soldier tapped his window button and tossed the crushed chip out the open window. He tapped it closed again. "Were we going somewhere in particular?" He looked into Steve's eyes, but he had to look away. Something about it made him dizzy.

"Yes."

"Well, I suggest you change your route, because they've tracked you this far."

Steve nodded. "Good idea." He looked at the woman. "Oh, and this is Natasha, by the way. Natasha, this is my friend, Bucky."

The soldier shook his head. "That's not my name."

"Yes, it is."

"No--"

"We can argue about it later. Is there something else you'd prefer to be called?"

The soldier thought about it for a moment. "I guess... I guess Bucky is better than nothing. I don't have a name."

Natasha smiled. "Welcome to the club. We're all a little identity-challenged around here." Her smile was tense.

The soldier... no, Bucky... studied her for a moment. "Do you have some particular reason for disliking me?" He could imagine a few of them, but he didn't recognize her, so he didn't know which one it might be.

Her smile faded. "You shot me once. Don't you remember?"

"I'm re-programmed after each mission," he said softly. He winced as he was nearly knocked back in his seat by a wave of emotion from Steve; rage, protectiveness. _Could you maybe not do that?_

_Sorry, buddy. I don't like what they did to you._

_I wasn't too keen on it either._ But why should Steve care so much?

"So, Bucky," Natasha said calmly, "Why did Hydra put a hit out on Nick Fury?"

"Because he threatened the Order."

"What the hell does that mean?"

"I don't know."

"Who told you to do it?" asked Steve.

"Alexander Pierce."

Steve and Natasha stared at him in shock, and then at each other.

"You're sure about that?" Steve asked.

"It can't be the same Alexander Pierce."

Bucky shifted in his seat. "Late fifties or early sixties, blond, regular features, blue eyes, gray suit, in love with the sound of his own voice."

"No, that's him alright."

"You believe him?" Natasha asked Steve, her eyes intent.

Steve nodded toward Bucky. "He and I are connected the same way you are with Banner. We can't lie to each other."

She seemed to accept that explanation, though it baffled Bucky. Natasha turned to him. "Is he the head of Hydra now?"

"I don't know. But he issues kill orders and wears a suit. That usually means a good amount of authority."

Natasha said, "That means..."

Steve said, "It means we've been infiltrated. It means that SHIELD is being directed by Hydra. They didn't just stay alive; they were among us all the time."

"Nick must have found out."

Steve's face turned cold and remote. "And I think I know what they're going to do. Remember the heli-carriers I told you about?"

Bucky said, "They're going to cleanse the world."

Steve looked at him. "You can't apply that word to people without killing a lot of them."

Bucky gave him a small, cold smile. "Hydra has no problem with killing a lot of people."

"Do you?" Natasha asked pointedly.

"Yes. It seems wasteful."

Steve paused uncertainly. "Well, okay. That's a start."


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which I hand-wave a certain amount of Science; and in which I can't seem to refer to Natasha by anything other than her first name.

"He's asleep again."

"What?" Steve jerked himself back to awareness from a combination of road fugue and obsessive contemplation of Bucky's current status.

"Bucky," Natasha said. "He's asleep again. Third time in four hours."

"Oh. I noticed that. I'm not sure what's going on with him. You would think seventy years would be enough."

"He was asleep that whole time? I thought he was in cryo-freeze."

"Yeah, that." Steve remembered the cold. "He's away from his usual environment. Do you think he's sick?"

"He may be, but I don't think it's that." She had a distant look in her eyes. "I'm trying to imagine the way he lived all that time, and I think they must have woken him up for missions only, just a few days at a time. During those times, he was running on adrenaline. Probably only slept an hour or two, here and there. Then he would go back, they would repair any injuries and put him back under. But cryo-freeze isn't sleep. Not really. The body and mind can't repair themselves the way they would naturally during a deep sleep. I bet he hasn't had regular sleep for the equivalent of months, maybe years. There's no telling how much damage that did to his brain. It's the most effective way to brainwash someone."

Steve glanced at her. He had seldom if ever heard Natasha say so many words at one time. "How do you know all this?"

"You should know a little bit about it, I know you've been through BCT. Basic physiology. You can't test the body's limits without knowing what they are. Bruce could give you a much more thorough explanation."

"I'm counting on it."

"He won't be in New York when we get there, you know. He has a longer drive than we do."

"Why does he refuse to fly?"

Natasha lifted an eyebrow. "Would you seal yourself in a tin can 40,000 feet in the air with a hundred other people for four hours if you were him?"

"I guess not. Anyway, it's really Stark I want to see. I always feel a little funny asking Banner for favors."

"You take into account what it costs him to grant them. That's one of the things I like about you. Are we sure we can trust Stark?"

"All I know is, he was willing to give his life once to save people. That doesn't sound very Hydra to me." He felt Bucky nearly wake up in the back seat, but it only lasted for a moment before his breathing evened out again. "You're right, though. If Hydra made it all the way to the top of SHIELD, who knows how many people are on the other side."

"Fury wasn't."

"Which is why they shot him. I just realized something."

"Do tell."

"Bucky... he's been worried that he's going to die."

"Die? Of what?" Natasha glanced back at him, her forehead creased.

"Of basic physiology. He knows he's been declining in health for years, but he doesn't know that it might just be lack of sleep. And he's afraid his body will reject that arm, but I seriously doubt Zola would have missed that. Surely he would have done something to Bucky to keep it from happening."

"His skin around the arm didn't look very healthy."

"No, but it's possible they never gave him time to completely heal." He tapped his upper thigh. "I have the frags of two hollowpoint bullets in this leg."

"Why didn't they extract the petals?"

"At the time, surgery was a little more primitive than it is now, and they would have had to tear my leg apart. Even I would have had trouble healing from that. But it's okay, because I was... am... in no danger of lead poisoning. My body adapts to metal and it resists toxins. Dr. Erskine had plans to, well, upgrade me. Steel bones, stuff like that. Not sure I would have agreed to it, but it would have been interesting."

"And you think Zola's work on Bucky was similar?" He could see Natasha turning the idea around in her head.

"Judging by how it felt to fight him, yeah, I do."

"Which brings me to another interesting point. Rogers, why hasn't he tried to kill us yet?"

"Because he wasn't ordered to kill us. Just Fury."

"Is he that... robotic?"

"He's..." Steve paused. "If you had known Bucky before... if you had... it's difficult to explain. I can see what's going on in his head, and sort of know what he'll do next, but then some strange kind of shadow will come up and I think that's the brainwashing." He firmed his jaw. "The important thing to remember is that if he was trained to be this way, he can be trained out of it, too."

Natasha was silent for a long moment. "Rogers, you and I both know it doesn't work that way. Once a killer, always a killer."

"But you of all people know that it's possible to make choices; to use those skills for the right cause instead of the wrong one."

"Turns out I was using them for Hydra's cause when I thought I was doing the right thing. And that can happen to the best of us. Including..." she gestured behind her.

"Unlike you, Bucky knew he was never doing the right thing, only what he had to do."

"How did they motivate him, then? Fear of death only goes so far."

"They convinced him that the world was even worse than he was."

"And if I know you, you think you can convince him that the world is a good place."

Steve nodded tightly.

Natasha smirked. "Better you than me."

Steve was about to reply when the world erupted into flames.


	6. Chapter 6

_Bucky, are you okay?_

Bucky opened his eyes and glanced to his left, where Steve was sitting. "How did we get here?"

"Are you okay?"

"I'm in one piece." Bucky sat up. He was in a room quietly decorated in blues and grays, but the furnishings were expensive; he guessed that it was a spare room in the home of someone wealthy.

"We got here by, uh... well, we were carried." Steve grimaced. "Rather flamboyantly."

"By who?"

"Tony Stark came by to pick us up after Hydra... or SHIELD, who knows at this point, blew up the road in front of us. I figured the risk of them tracing a call was pretty much moot after that."

"Good thinking," Bucky said, scratching his head. It was strange; he could feel the impact of the crash, he had a few bruises that hadn't been there before, but all in all, he felt better than he had the day before. Why would he feel _better_?

_Because you got some sleep. Natasha could explain it to you better than me._

"Stop that."

"Why?"

Bucky shook his head. "Just... I don't like you in my head."

Steve looked hurt. "I'm... sorry. But Bucky, me staying quiet isn't going to get me out of there. You and I have a connection. That's not my fault." He paused. "Is it really so bad?"

Bucky looked at him, trying hard this time. He managed to maintain eye contact for a few seconds before he had to look away, his stomach churning. "Why do I... almost remember you?"

"We've been friends since we were little kids. We fought together in the war. You were captured, they erased your memories, but if you still had them... you'd remember all about me."

Bucky's mind felt like it was twisting itself into pieces as he tried to remember.

"It hurts you when you try to remember, doesn't it?"

Bucky winced. "It feels... it makes me sick."

"That means they didn't erase your memories after all. They just made it impossible for you to access them."

Bucky looked at Steve again, and then away. He didn't like not being able to do something.

_You've always been able to do everything, that's why. The original Superman, long before I was even invented._

_I told you, get out of my head._

_What if I could help you remember?_

_... I want to remember. I want to remember you. I want to remember myself._

_Let me help you. I know your mind almost as well as you do._

Bucky felt something like a gentle, seeking hand, right at the center of his mind. He tried to keep still, but couldn't stop his breath from rising a little.

_Calm down._

The hand seemed to browse through his thoughts, touching here, touching there, pushing things gently aside to get at other things. Suddenly, it hit upon a memory. It pulled, pulled...

_... Momsaidyoucoulds tayfordinnerbutwhatdidwedoaboutthew indowI'lltrytobegoodBuckywhereareyouitwasasum merdayandhazystainsoflightagainstthewallinthemorningpleasestopitIca ndoitonmyownI'myourfriendthoug handit'sgoingtobeokayit'sgoingtobeokayit'sgoingtobeokay--_

Bucky fell forward off the bed, onto all fours and dry-heaved on the carpet, his guts twisting as though his own body were trying to escape itself. He fell to his side and curled up, sucking air into his lungs, unable to stabilize himself, still retching, the sour taste of bile burning the back of his throat.

He felt hands on his shoulders, helping him sit up. He kept his eyes closed, his stomach still jumping. The remembered images were already fading.

_Lay down._

Steve helped him back into the bed, and Bucky felt darkness close over him again. _Why does sleep have to be dark?_

_Don't worry about it, I'm not leaving you. I can see for both of us. I can remember for both of us, too._

_If it were only just pain, I could..._

_I know, Bucky, I know. They made it worse than pain._

_Don't give up on me._

"Never. I'm with you til the end of the line, remember?" Bucky heard Steve take a breath, and then say it out loud for the first time... "I love you." His voice shook.

Bucky reached for Steve's hand. He couldn't say it back. He didn't know what love was.

_I can love enough for both of us, too. Forever if that's what it takes._ Steve took both of Bucky's hands in his own, the flesh and the metal, gripping them hard as though he would never let go.

Steve deserved love. Bucky wished he were capable of it.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In Captain America Civil War, Stark will have an entirely different relationship with Bucky, but I thought it best to keep things simple for now.

_"You know, I'm about to be irritated by the fact that everybody and their brother wants to use my technology to destroy the planet."_

_"If you would stop making things that were capable of destroying the planet in the first place, Stark..."_

_"... Then none of us would be here to listen to me bitch about it. Which I intend to do. At length."_

_"Can you finish doing it after we work out the plan?"_

_"There is no plan until we track down Nick Fury."_

_"Nick Fury is six feet underground."_

_"Tell you what. If Nick Fury is actually dead, I'll buy you and your little friend a honeymoon cottage."_

_"... I can't talk to you sometimes."_

_"Well, then, let me put a bandaid on you and make you all better: I bet I can fix the join on his arm. Whoever installed it knew exactly dick about mechanics, and dickless about biotech."_

_"And yet he's used that arm to kill dozens of extremely well-protected people."_

_"Is your pet domesticated enough that I can take a look at him without him killing me?"_

_"Is your mouth capable of shutting up?"_

_"No."_

_"Then I make no promises."_

* * *

Steve rubbed his forehead, thinking he could probably use some sleep himself. He wondered if they had been right to leave Washington. There wasn't a lot they could do from New York if the heli-carriers were launched. All that they knew was that it was going to be soon, because Stark's satellite reads were showing a ton of activity beneath the river.

Stark was working on Bucky's arm and Banner was carefully analyzing what had been done to his body. Bucky could tell them where home base was, along with the machinery used to program him, but there was no time to get there. The only reason they were taking this short break to work on him was because Stark seemed to intuit that Steve wasn't going anywhere without Bucky, and a broken Bucky would render both of them dead weight. Steve gave Stark credit for not giving him too much grief over it. Banner was helping because he was simply moved to help. They had attempted to sedate Bucky, when that failed they had attempted local anesthetic, and then Jarvis had suggested hypnosis. Natasha tried, but Bucky couldn't seem to let go. She had grimaced at him, dug into one of her pockets and said, "Here, drink this." He took a cautious sip from the vial she handed him, and almost immediately fell backwards onto the operating table.

"What the hell was that?" Steve asked as they all stared at her.

"Something I designed to take out elephants."

Steve stood up. "What!?"

"Where were you dealing with elephants?" Stark asked.

"Never mind. Steve, he's fine."

In any case, Bucky was quiet and relaxed as Stark poked at his arm. Which was good, because Steve didn't think he could handle Bucky being tortured right in front of him.

"What's wrong?" Natasha sat beside him.

"Stark thinks that Fury isn't dead."

"Stark has been known to be wrong. I was there, he wasn't."

"Still, he's got me thinking about it now. You know who is really responsible for Fury's death? Me."

"There's that God complex again."

"I'm not kidding," Steve said, mildly irritated. "Bucky wouldn't have known where to go and where to shoot if I hadn't been there, feeding him the information." He paused. "I was looking right at Fury when he was shot. Right at him. I could have stopped it."

"You don't know that. Bucky has been an expert killing machine for decades now without your assistance, and how hard is it really to guess that Fury would come to you if he felt he couldn't trust anyone? Everybody trusts you. It's annoying at times." She smiled gently.

"Do you trust me?"

She hesitated.

"That's all the answer I need."

"It's not what you're thinking," Natasha said. "It's just that you're a little different when you're with him," she nodded toward Bucky. "I'm not sure I trust you to think clearly where he's concerned."

Steve struggled with that for a moment. "I'm not sure I trust myself, either." He looked up as Banner came toward them. "What's the word?"

"This much I can figure out without taking the necessary weeks to really dive into his DNA: his genes have been resequenced. Everything down to the mitochondria in his cells has been altered. This isn't 1940's technology, so I'm guessing that they continued to work on him over the years. Which may not actually bode well. Too many cooks in the kitchen."

"Is he going to be alright?" Steve tried to keep the tremor from his voice. To find Bucky and then lose him again...

"I don't know yet, but he's stable now, everything but the shoulder, and Stark should be able to reduce that inflammation. People grafting metal parts onto their bodies," he said with a dry smile. "It's completely unnatural if you ask me."

Bucky grunted and shifted a little on the operating table; Stark immediately backed away. "Whoa there." He looked at Natasha. "I thought you said that stuff could take out elephants!"

"It can. Our boy Bucky appears to be a little overly alert for his own good."

Banner nodded. "They wouldn't want him to be easy to drug."

"Then how did they do so many operations on him over the ye-- oh," said Stark.

"Yeah," Steve said, grimly. "They basically just strapped him down." The question hung in the air, unasked, but he answered it anyway: "And yes, I could feel it too. I was lucky to be frozen for most of it." He felt Bucky waking up. "Better finish fast, Stark."

"That's what she said, and we'll call that close enough for government work." Stark delicately replaced the last metal panel just as Steve felt Bucky waking up.

Steve said, "Get away from him." Stark backed away, curiosity in his eyes.

Bucky twitched a little. He moaned, and then he jumped off the table wildly, swinging his arms. He knocked over two trays of equipment before he even opened his eyes.

_Bucky, calm down. I'm here. We're your friends._

Bucky hesitated, his chest heaving in panic. "Don't do that again," he said roughly.

"We won't. Will we?" Steve asked Stark.

"We will not. No refunds or exchanges for perfection the first time."

Bucky staggered and fell to one knee, still obviously drugged. "My arm," he said, flexing it and extending it slowly.

"Doesn't hurt anymore, does it?" Stark said softly.

"No, it doesn't hurt. It's never not hurt." Bucky stared at his arm in wonderment. He looked up at Steve with tears in his eyes. "Can you feel that?"

Steve nodded, not trusting himself to speak. The lightning flashes that always traveled up and down Bucky's arm were gone.

Bucky stood up again, his arms crossed over his chest as though he were holding himself together. He looked around at the others. "Stark is right, Fury shouldn't be dead. I didn't shoot him anywhere that would have killed him within the hour."

"You could hear us talking?" Natasha said, staring.

"Why not?" Steve asked.

"Because you were there," Bucky nodded toward Steve. "Because he was your friend."

Natasha bit her lip. "There are drugs that can reduce a person's life signs to a minimum. They could have faked his death."

"If that's the case, then there are people who know he's alive, because he couldn't have done it on his own," Steve said.

"Then we have a plan," said Stark. "Let's go harass some nurses, shall we? Food first, though. They're not launching those carriers for at least another twelve hours."


	8. Chapter 8

"About damn time," drawled Fury.

Natasha and Steve walked into the makeshift hospital room in a shocked silence, and Steve could swear that Natasha's eyes were wet. Stark and Banner seemed unaffected. Maria Hill waved them inside with a composed smile; Steve suspected she would usher in the apocalypse with the same exact smile.

Bucky went dead still, pale and silent as a corpse.

_My mission._

Steve looked at him curiously, and then felt a hard clench of fear in his gut. "Bucky." Bucky kept staring at Fury. "BUCKY!"

 _My mission isn't finished._ Slowly, Bucky moved into a fighting stance.

"Bucky, look at me." Steve moved in front of Bucky, breaking his line of sight to Fury. _Look at me. Come on._

Bucky looked at Steve, calmly, with eyes that didn't know him at all.

"What's going on, Rogers?" Natasha's voice was tight with strain, and Steve heard her trying to gauge the situation. Which meant Banner was as well.

 _No. Please, no. Bucky!_ He held his hands out, but instinct told him not to make physical contact. "Everything's okay, Banner. Natasha, be cool," he said, watching her slowly ease her way behind Bucky, reaching into her left sleeve pocket. "We're all friends here. Right?" Bucky's eyes remained glassy.

_Bucky, please don't make us do this._

_I didn't complete my mission._

Natasha pulled out a small pistol just as Banner took a step forward, unbuttoning the cuffs of his shirt. Bucky glanced from one to the other and Steve could see him calculating. He heard a soft noise behind him as Hill rose from her seat. Steve didn't know whether Bucky could disable all of them before Banner could pull a Code Green, and he didn't want to find out.

Steve made his internal voice hard as flint and tried to dig into Bucky's mind. _You don't have to complete your mission! You don't work for Hydra anymore!_

_I have never not completed a mission._

_Bucky!_

_Who the hell is Bucky?_ A dim light of curiosity showed in Bucky's eyes.

Steve tried to do what he had done before, digging for memories in Bucky's mind. Suddenly, it was a cold, remote, feral place, unfamiliar to him. He stumbled around, knocking against thoughts and impulses, and finally found something that might be a memory, that might just--

_... whatiftheyfindout--_

_NO!!_ Bucky's face suddenly changed, breaking into a horrified expression that quickly turned to agony. He fell to his knees, clutching his stomach. _Not that one! No!_

Steve knelt down and took Bucky by the shoulders. "Bucky, it's me! Tell me you know me!"

"I... I know you," Bucky gasped. He shook his head, his face dead white. "Don't ever... please don't ever do that again..."

"I won't," Steve said. "Hey. Look at me."

_I can't._

_I'm sorry... okay, just, don't kill anybody, okay?_

_There was something about... I thought I had..._

_There is no mission, Bucky. You're free._

"Rogers," Hill said, her voice sharp.

"It's okay. Just a flashback." The lie left his mouth before he could even think, and Steve wondered again just how much of his character was compromised now.

"Unless I'm very much mistaken, you have just brought into the room the person who blew up my car and then shot me," said Fury, with surprising equanimity. "Now before I get really pissed off, may I ask you why?"

Steve sighed. "It's a long story."

"Then make it shorter, because we don't have time, but I'm still dying to know."

Steve scrambled to his feet, helping Bucky up. "Bucky, this is Nick Fury. My _friend_ ," he said, firmly. "Nick, this is Bucky. Who is also my friend, in the process of rehabilitation."

"Can he rehabilitate in the next room?" Fury's voice was still quite calm.

"Not without a babysitter," said Stark. "Captain, you've just been reassigned." Steve looked at Stark, whose eyes were blazing with rage. The others didn't look much calmer than he did. They had all guessed more than he had said.

Steve felt his face redden in utter shame. He knew there was no time for apologies, and no apology would be good enough anyway. He had lost their trust, putting Fury in danger again. It felt like a kick to the stomach.

"Bucky, come with me."

He led Bucky out of the room and into a room with a table and chairs. They sat. Even Bucky seemed to realize some inkling of what had just happened. He looked at Steve with something that in more human eyes might have been construed as concern.

Steve's mind was strangely blank. He caught at the only thing he could think of, "Bucky, what was that memory you hated so much?"

"What memory?"

Steve gently touched it in Bucky's mind. Bucky turned pale again. "Don't. Please don't."

"Why?"

Bucky just shook his head.

"Bucky, why? We were kids together. We never had any secrets. We've wiped boogers on each other, worn the same clothes. We fought together, we killed men together. I felt you get captured and tortured. I've felt you murder. What could you _possibly_ need to hide from me so badly?" He felt a surge of anger, and knew that it was his own fault, but couldn't seem to stop. "I've felt you blow families up with bombs and I've felt you shoot people in the head who were begging you for mercy. None of it mattered, because you were my friend. I found you. I didn't kill you, even though I know Nick would have advised me to. I didn't even fight you. I've been trying to _help_ you. Everything I have done for the past few years has been about you, you, YOU." He took a deep breath. "I don't even know who I am anymore! My friends don't know me either! Did you even see what happened in there?" He grabbed Bucky by the shoulders and shook him. "Did you?!"

Bucky was staring at Steve with wide, horrified eyes.

"Tell me that you at least understand what happened." Steve waited. "Bucky. You nearly killed someone again. Without even wanting to, just because you had been _programmed_ to do it."

Bucky slowly shook his head, mute.

_Answer me!_

_But I don't understand. I don't understand what happened at all._

_How can you not?_

_Because my brain is no longer mine._ Bucky's eyes fell. _Feel it?_

Steve touched Bucky's mind again. It was still shadowed with the remnants of conditioning. Steve tried to remember Basic Training, the way they drilled the moves into you, again and again and again because there was no time to think when you were in battle. You had to rely on conditioning to keep your body moving, your gun handy, your life going. If you betrayed your training, you died. Or worse, you failed at your mission.

 _I failed,_ he thought. _I used to be a leader._

Bucky's eyes were sad. _I'm not worth this. You know that, don't you?_

"No, I don't. I don't know that at all." Steve took Bucky's hands in his own. "We're going to figure this out."

They looked at each other for a moment.

Bucky said, "I can look into your eyes now. I couldn't, before. I don't know why."

Steve held Bucky's gaze as he held his hands, and decided to reverse the feed. He gave Bucky a memory instead of trying to take one.

_waitholdupica n'tmom'sgonnabe ican'tthough... I can't, though. I can't._

_running up the hill together trying to make it home before dark and before they would get into trouble and Bucky was pushing Steve and Steve's lungs were laboring so hard_

_it felt like they were burning, burning_

_and they ran up the hill they ran up the hill_

_Steve fell and Bucky looked in his eyes and that was the first time the first time ever_

_joining together, the same mind and then_

_I'm sorry, I'm so sorry Steve... is that what it feels like I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry it hurts I'm so sorry_

_and they were late but it didn't matter it didn't matter because_

Steve opened his eyes. Bucky's eyes were full of tears. "It hurt you so badly, and I never knew until that day."

"But you stopped pushing me after that. You always slowed down for me. Do you know why?"

"No, I don't."

"Because you're a good person, Bucky," Steve said intently. "I've never met anyone better than you. I know you, inside and out. And I know you're still in there somewhere."

"What if I'm not?" Bucky whispered.

"Not an option," Steve said.

Bucky tried to lift his hands to his face, but Steve was still holding them. Steve loosened his grip. Bucky stared down at their loosely conjoined hands for a moment, and then he brought Steve's hands up to his fallen face, and covered his eyes with them. He started to cry, almost silently.

Steve sat very still and caught Bucky's tears in the palms of his hands, letting the minutes pass.


	9. Chapter 9

_"Are we sure this is necessary? Can't Stark just... destroy them with something big and technical?"_

_"Unfortunately, I helped design those heli-carriers. Generally anything made by Stark is also Stark-proof, but these even more so. They've got enough fire power to do a ton of damage unless we stop them fast and hard. No, Fury has the right idea; let them tear each other apart. It's the fastest way to get them out of the sky. Of course, that means they have to be IN the sky."_

_"There's no way around it, Banner. We need to use the chips. Ideally we would need one flier per carrier. Romanov, you already have your orders, so you're out. Hill, I need you to coordinate. Who are our fliers?"_

_"Okay, so we have Stark..."_

_"Correct. What about Rhodes?"_

_"He's in Australia at the moment, I haven't been able to contact him."_

_"Shit."_

_"What about me?"_

_"Banner, you're our ace in the hole, per usual. I don't want to play you unless we have to, and anyway, someone probably needs to be on the ground outside."_

_"Meaning we need two more people who are comfortable working in the air."_

_"We happen to have exactly two other people in the next room, you know."_

_"I reiterate: shit."_

* * *

Bucky shook his head. "No."

Steve said, "I agree, not a good idea. And not just because none of you trust him. Or me, right now, by association." The others exchanged glances, but nobody bothered to argue. "I think I can take one down, but Bucky needs to stay on the ground. So that leaves one." He pondered for a moment. "I might have someone who can help us."

"Who?" asked Hill.

"Just a pilot I met recently. Non-affiliated with SHIELD. Seems trustworthy, but uh..." Steve looked down. "I won't ask you guys to believe me on that."

"Steve, shut up," Natasha said. "One screw up doesn't keep you from being the planet's most trustworthy living thing."

"Um, I say it does."

"You can shut up too, Stark. Where is this pilot?"

"I think I can get in touch with him through the VA."

"There's a phone right here."

"What about Hydra?" Bucky said, quietly.

"The man raises a good point," said Fury. "If Pierce is corrupt, then anybody could be. We have no way of telling who."

"Sure you do," said Bucky. "You have me."

"I beg your pardon?"

Bucky moved forward, feeling a little awkward. Talking to people hadn't been his speciality for a very long time. "I'm programmed not just to eliminate targets, but to protect Hydra. I know the face of every agent Hydra has in the field."

"So make us a list."

Bucky grimaced. "Doesn't work that way unfortunately. I don't have their names memorized, it's several hundred people. I know them on sight. That means I have to see them first."

"That's a neat little memory trick," said Banner.

"Faces are about thirty times easier than names for the human brain to remember. It's useful for missions. It's so I can avoid, well, shooting them... but also so I can use them."

"Use them?" Fury seemed interested.

"The cops who tried to break into your car? They were under my orders. They drove you in my direction, I was to take over if they failed. I'm authorized to organize whole platoons of men if necessary."

Fury sat up straight. "And they just... do what you tell them to do?"

Bucky nodded. "If a Hydra agent sees me, he assumes that I'm under direct orders from top brass. I'm kind of hard to mistake for anybody else." He flexed his arm. It was taking him a while to get used to the fact that it didn't hurt, and it didn't make tiny clockwork squeals every time he moved, either...

"Bucky," Fury said, "You just became extraordinarily useful."

"But you just said you can't hurt them," Stark pointed out. "How useful is that?"

Bucky smiled. It wasn't a happy smile. "I never said I couldn't hurt them. I was always authorized to use disciplinary measures..."

"On anybody who didn't comply with your mission," finished Steve.

"Bingo. Up to and including death. After all, that was my main job: killing anybody who got in Hydra's way, even if they were a Hydra agent." Bucky felt the old familiar disgust rise in the back of his throat. He felt like he could smell the lab again.

Steve seemed to sense his distress. "I'm not sure how I feel about giving you a mission to go and kill more people."

"I feel fine about it," Fury said drily.

"Which is why I think SHIELD needs to go down with Hydra. We have too much in common," Steve said, firmly. "We may have been doing Hydra's work for years without knowing it. If we were clean, how could we not know it?"

"Rogers, getting your hands dirty to do the world some good is how everybody in this room operates."

"Nick, you personally oversaw the invention and construction of three massive war machines intended for nothing but pre-emptive action. That's not getting your hands dirty. That's letting the dirt cover everything good."

"After all," said Bucky, "Hydra loves to create machines that can murder."

Steve gave him a sharp look. "Nobody is calling you a machine."

"You should. I'm a weapon that you can use."

"No you're not, Bucky! I didn't save you so that you could do the same work for us that you do for them!"

"Did you save me?" Bucky asked, sadly. "Nobody else is all that sure of it. Are you?" He looked around. The others didn't seem to know where to look, except for Steve who was glaring at him, and Stark who was looking at him speculatively.

Stark said, "He's right. He was designed for a purpose, and that purpose suits our needs. Not our wants, Steve. Our needs. This is necessary. We have to root out Hydra."

"Cut off one head, and two shall take its place," Steve said with quiet anger. "You're asking him to kill hundreds of people."

There was silence for a moment.

Fury said, "Then what do you suggest, Rogers?"

"Kill the structure supporting Hydra. Which is SHIELD. Rebuild from scratch, and Bucky can be your recruiter."

"Steve," Bucky said, "Listen. I'm not gonna get out of this without having to kill people. No, listen to me I said. I agree with you that SHIELD should go down, it's rotten. Meaning no offense," he said to Fury.

"Oh, none taken. Do go on."

"The fact is, someday I may be something different. Someday I may be a person again. But right now, I'm a gun. It's what I was built for. For the first time since that happened, I have a chance of getting pointed at the people who deserve it." He held Steve's eyes, hoping for him to understand. _I don't know much about redemption, but I know it always involves blood._

_Bucky, I don't want you to do this._

_And I won't do it if you tell me not to. Please, Steve. Don't tell me not to. Don't force me to be useless when there's some actual good I could do._

_... If I say stop, at any time, would you stop?_

_If you say stop, at any time, I will stop. But don't say it yet._

Steve took a deep breath, and looked at Fury. "I don't own him. If he wants to do this... then I have nothing more to say."

Stark was considering. "Do we need to program you, the way you were sent on missions in the past?"

Bucky shrugged. "Hopefully not. You don't have the equipment here anyway. And you won't have it in the future, either."

"Why not?"

"Because when we've taken care of the heli-carriers and Hydra and SHIELD and all the rest of it, I'm going back to the laboratory and I'm gonna tear it to pieces. This technology dies with me."


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PLEASE NOTE THAT THE ARCHIVE WARNINGS HAVE CHANGED, and so has the rating.

_"I thought you were a pilot."_

_"I never said pilot."_

_"Stark's gonna love this."_

* * *

It was a subtle calculation; they couldn't use the heli-carriers to destroy each other until they were in the air and armed. The waiting was the hardest part, but then, it always was. Fury's contacts told them that they had six hours to kill before the launch was scheduled. Until then, nothing to do but sit around.

Steve was already nervous about letting Bucky go it alone. He knew that some part of what he was feeling was the addictive nature of their connection. Even though they had been together for only 20 hours or so, it already felt like physical pain when Bucky even went into an adjoining room. They were sitting together at the table now, talking in whispers, their knees touching. Nobody else thought anything of it. They were soul mates, finally reunited. It was natural. The only problem was that it might turn out to be a deficit during the coming battle.

"I have an idea."

"What's that?" Bucky seemed eager to be distracted from thoughts of killing.

"You don't have to remember anything you experienced when you were with me. I can give you the memories, like I did earlier."

Bucky nodded. "Okay, try it."

_You ready?_

_Ready._

Steve sent the thread of a memory toward Bucky... _itwasalwayswarmint hekitchenitwas_

_blueberry pie it was Steve's favorite he always_

_"Go ahead, eat up, you're a growing boy."_

_and Bucky smiled at his mother and she smiled at both of them and they smiled and_

The memory ended. Bucky pulled away, blinking. "That was... I got it. When you give them to me, I can remember them in my own thoughts. I remember it now." He smiled. "Blueberry pie. She made it for you as often as she could get fresh berries."

"I know. Your mother was an incredibly sweet lady."

"It was the only thing we could depend on you eating, Steve. You barely ate anything because everything made you sick."

"You remember that?"

"I do now. Try another one."

"Okay, let me think of something..." Steve sent another thread of memory.

_whatdoyoudowhenitdo esthatidon'tknow_

_I didn't know who to tell so I told you I thought maybe I was sick or hurt_

_but it wasn't a place you told mom or dad about you hid and they never talked_

_Bucky we could always talk about anything_

Bucky emerged from the memory, his forehead creased. "Ah. Yes, I remember that. When you..."

_When I showed you my first erection._ Steve knew he was blushing. He shrugged. _You reassured me. Your dad had taught you about it; mine hadn't, so I had no clue._

_Your parents didn't tell you about it?_

_They never told me about anything. Had to figure it all out on my own, or ask you._

_But you were the first one to figure out..._ Bucky closed his eyes, slowly curling up over his stomach. He grunted. "Sorry."

"It's okay. And I know what you're talking about." _Yeah, I was the first one of us to figure out what to do with it when it sprang up like that._

Bucky started laughing softly, his head down, hair shadowing his eyes. "Jesus." He glanced up. "That's why you went for that particular memory. Earlier, when you were trying to stop me."

"I didn't get it, Buck. Whatever it was."

"But you guessed," Bucky said, intently. "You know."

Steve felt he was at the cusp of something important. "Well, I think I know now. That's it? That's the one thing that you consider worse than a hundred murders? ... I may remember it differently from how you remember it." Slowly, hesitantly, he sent the thread of memory out for Bucky to catch and hold.

_don't stop..._

Bucky's mind closed like a clamshell, and he curled up again, gasping. _No. No, we didn't._

_Bucky, we did. It's okay. We were just kids, we were experimenting. You know that most people don't find their Other during childhood. We did. Being linked just leads to... certain things._

_It's wrong._ The thought had a desperate tinge to it.

_Why? We didn't hurt anybody. We didn't hurt each other._

_Because... men aren't usually linked to each other..._

_We were taught that, during that time. But people believe differently now. And there are too many examples to the contrary._

"What are you trying to sell me, huh?" Bucky half-smiled, but it was a panicked expression.

"You don't have to be afraid. This is me you're talking to. Remember?"

"Not funny."

"Not meant to be. I asked you and I meant it. Do you remember now?"

Bucky looked around the room, but nobody was paying them any attention. Natasha and Banner were tucked in a corner, conversing in quiet voices; Hill and Fury and Stark and Sam were doing something similar, but Steve guessed that their topic of conversation was probably a little different.

Bucky turned back to Steve, his eyes unsure. "Yeah. I remember now."

"Is it a bad memory?"

Bucky's throat moved. "No." His smile crept back, nervously. "No, it's actually... I'm glad to have that one back. Before... everything that happened to me... I used to remember it pretty frequently, I think."

Steve read between the lines. He suppressed the urge to look around the room himself; he told himself to behave naturally. "Me too."

"You too?"

Steve smiled. _Quit making me repeat myself, you dope._

_Quit saying things that put me out of my depth!_

_Out of your depth? But there were girls..._

_You always thought I was some kind of lady's man, didn't you?_

_Well, you did better with women than I did..._

_If I'd had sex with any of them, don't you think you would have sensed it?_

_You... didn't?_

Bucky reached for Steve's hand and gripped it hard. "I think I would remember that."

"I have to hope so. I mean," Steve started, and then suddenly found himself giggling. Bucky started laughing too, and it felt like being drunk, it felt like the first moment had felt in his new body, it felt like the first day of summer vacation... Steve wanted to tell Bucky that he loved him again, but somehow, the words meant something else now, and they stuck in his throat. He tried to say it mentally, but they stuck in his brain. He struggled for a moment.

_It's okay. You've already told me a million times. Like, actually a million I think._ Bucky's eyes twinkled, and for a moment he looked like the old Bucky again.

Steve sat up straight, pulling away from Bucky and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. His head was swimming and his heart was pounding, and this was absolutely the worst state possible for heading into a strategic engagement. He had to focus.

Bucky nodded. "You're right." He paused. "Tell me about SHIELD headquarters. I'll need to know something about the building layout."

Steve nodded, trying to collect himself. After a few moments he succeeded, and he was able to start making sketches for Bucky.

Their knees never stopped touching.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The timeline is different from the film, accounting for Stark's help and Bucky's evident superpowers.

_"If Bucky just goes in there like a battering ram, he'll be dead in ten seconds, probably wiped out by genuine SHIELD agents. I think we should try to get them on our side. I have an idea..."_

_"What is it that you want to do?"_

_"Something I should have done a long time ago. I finally need to crank up that intercom you were so nervous about my using."_

* * *

The soldier gave up his name, for the time being. He pushed away all of the recovered memories, swept any emotion out of the corners of his mind.

The order was to wait for the signal, and then to kill as many hydra agents as he could find. And if it took a year to find them all, so be it. Never before had a mission spanned so many people. He could count on at least a hundred Hydra operatives being on the heli-carriers themselves, and perhaps another eighty out in the field, but the rest he would have to take care of right now.

He could feel Steve worrying about his safety. _Worry about your own. We're all about to do some pretty dangerous stuff._ Then, gently, he pushed Steve back out of his mind. _I can't have you there, not with what I'm about to do._ He felt a twinge of deep pain that faded as Steve relinquished his place in the soldier's thoughts, surrendering it to thoughts of murder. He was still in street clothing, the long sleeves of his jacket rendering him relatively unobtrusive. Fury had given him all the equipment he needed. The soldier checked his weapons. He flexed his arm. And then a strange calm descended upon him.

He went cold; sent his soul to the remote regions inside of himself and locked it in deep. Then he waited, perfectly still, a shadow just outside the building.

_"Attention all SHIELD agents, this is Steve Rogers. You may have heard a lot about me over the last few days. Some of you may even have been ordered to hunt me down. But I think it's time you heard the truth..."_

The soldier tuned Steve's voice out and slipped into the garage like a soft wind. The complex was extraordinarily silent, listening to Steve's message, but when he was done, it didn't take long for the sounds of chaos to begin to emerge from the building. He silently left ten agents dead in his wake, lungs punctured or necks snapped. He didn't bother to confirm all the kills; mortal injury would have to suffice.

All three fliers were set to go up at the same time and hit their targets at once. The soldier didn't let himself think about Steve being so far up in the air without his own wings.

Hill's voice buzzed in his ear as he entered the lobby. "Eight minutes to armament." The soldier's mission was set, regardless of whether they managed to take out the heli-carriers; even if Hydra won, they were all on the death list. He crushed the larynx of another Hydra agent easily with his metal hand.

The presence of the fliers had been noticed; there was flak in the air and the insect-like buzzing of jets in chase. He didn't permit himself to focus on it. He noticed a clump of SHIELD agents battling it out with Hydra agents in the corner. Three well-placed bullets made the fight significantly less balanced, and SHIELD overcame Hydra easily. He had an array of throwing daggers; he used ten of them on his way to the inner rooms.

"Seven minutes."

".... Alpha lock."

He checked the archives. All five archivists were Hydra operatives. No need to be cautious. He wiped them out with two grenades. The sound of the explosion brought five SHIELD agents running; one of them was bleeding from the shoulder. They all aimed their side arms at the soldier and called out for him to stop.

"Behind you," he replied calmly.

"What?" One of the agents glanced to the rear, where several Hydra operatives were advancing with rifles. Bucky casually took each of them out, head-shot, head-shot, head-shot.

The SHIELD agents turned back to him, stunned. He lowered his gun and slipped past them, saying, "Don't follow me if you want to live."

They didn't follow him.

He dispatched eighteen people on the ground floor, and then took the stairs to floor 2. He tossed two Hydra agents over his shoulders and down the stairwell in passing. Floor 2 held sixteen Hydra agents and seventeen SHIELD agents. He had to knock one of the SHIELD agents out to complete one Hydra kill. He kept out of sight as much as possible, still killing with knives and his hands where he could, quietly and efficiently.

"Charlie lock."

"Bravo flier, are you in position yet? Five minutes."

"Had to take a detour! I'll get there..."

Snap, slash, step, slash, step, snap. With each kill he felt colder, until he was frozen and locked in ice again, an amphibious sludge running through his veins instead of warm red blood.

"... Four and a half minutes."

"Bravo lock."

"Okay, get yourselves out of there." 

He cleared floor 3 and went to Operations, which was in foment, SHIELD agents battling with Hydra all over the room. It was time to take the jacket off.

The effect it had was electric; every Hydra agent in the room recognized his arm, and they all began to scramble to get out of his way. The SHIELD agents seemed confused, but more than a few pointed their guns at him. He held his hands up, smirking. "Freeze," he said.

Every Hydra agent froze, even the ones fighting, and they all stared at him.

"Drop your weapons and let them take you." The Hydra agents exchanged confused looks. "Do not make me repeat myself." The Hydra agents dropped their weapons and put their hands up.

There was a pause while the SHIELD agents tried to figure out what was going on and where to point their weapons.

He glanced around the room. "I leave it to you." He was out of the room before anybody could shift their aim fast enough to follow him. Then yelling and scuffling broke out behind him. He hoped that at least a few of those guns would be fired, but at least the room was secured, and that accounted for twenty more Hydra.

"Alpha flier, are you on the ground yet?"

"... Grounded now. We're headed for the Triskelion."

"Roger that. ... Two minutes."

Floor 4. He ran into isolated, organized packs of Hydra agents, well-armed. He gunned them down, borrowing new weapons in passing from the dead.

"Mark."

A scream of explosives and rending metal boomed through the sky as the heli-carriers fired on each other. The soldier estimated that that much hardware could take as long as three minutes to damage badly enough to fall. Long enough for a few dozen more hits. He killed his way up.

On the seventh floor, he ran into a tumult of fighting, and in the middle of it was Steve. They almost ran into each other. The soldier nodded to him in a businesslike manner, and slashed open the throat of the Hydra agent to his left. Steve flinched.

_Bucky._

_No._

_Bucky, we've been working our way down from the upper floors. Everything is secure, Natasha has the chopper in the air. Pierce is dead._

_I still see Hydra agents._

_And they're going to stay alive. They're going to trial, Bucky. Not all of them have to die. You can find the rest later._

_It's cleaner to--_

_Bucky, I want you to stop. Now._

The soldier immediately felt a massive weight in his head... the promise he had made to Steve warring against the incomplete mission. _I have to... I have..._

_No, you don't. It's over. We won._

_We won?_ The words made no sense. There was no such thing as winning. There was only death.

_BUCKY._

Bucky flinched, shaking his head to clear it. "Steve..." he whispered.

"Bucky, stop."

Bucky looked down at the knife in his hand, red with blood. He let it slide from his fingers, down to the floor. The pressure in his mind was mounting, but Steve's directive had won. Now all he had to worry about was...

He had just killed ninety-eight people.

At that moment, there was a massive crashing sound, and the building shook. Steve looked around wildly. "Hill, what was that?"

"One of the heli-carriers just crashed into the west side of the upper floors of the building, get out STAT!"

Steve grabbed Bucky's hand and they began to sprint toward the exits. They nearly tripped over an injured agent. Steve grabbed the man and threw him over his shoulder, and they kept running.

It was the kind of thing only Steve would do, Bucky thought. Something inside of him was beginning to feel sick.

They shot out of the east side of the building, ushering several SHIELD agents out with them, and ran out into the sunlight, which was really surprisingly beautiful considering the massacre happening in the sky above them. Bucky ran beside Steve, kept running until Steve was shouting for him to stop, kept running, felt a hand pulling on his shoulder, kept running and looking up into the blue sky until he felt dizzy and then fell to the ground, shaking.

"Bucky." Steve's voice was broken. "Why did I let you do this." Bucky felt Steve's arm around his shoulders, helping him to sit up. Behind them, SHIELD Headquarters fell and died, covering up the trail of corpses Bucky had left in his wake. Ninety-eight people, killed in cold blood. Dozens more dying in the wreckage. The sunlight was bright, it hurt his eyes, but he didn't care anymore.

"I don't want to remember," he gasped out, grabbing Steve's shoulder.

"What? What don't you want to remember?"

"I don't want to remember any of it, any of my past. You can give me the memories from when we were together. I think... I think those were the only good times in my entire life. Everything else, just leave it. I don't want to remember. Today was... I can't do it, Steve, I can't." The air tasted sour and hot, and he couldn't catch his breath. "Please, I can't..."

"Hush, Bucky, hush. You don't have to. You're right. You don't need any of that in your head... today was bad enough."

Bucky clung to Steve's shoulder and couldn't stop shaking. Suddenly he felt cold all over, and things were growing dark. _Why does it have to be dark?_

"Hill, Bucky's going into shock, we need help!"

It was the last thing Bucky heard for a long time.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note that the fic rating has been changed again; read with caution.

_"Is he okay?"_

_"Would you be?"_

_"Probably not, but I'm not him."_

_"I think Hydra designed themselves a toy just so they could break it. I found him, or he found me, just in time. Maybe too late."_

_"Rogers, I assure you his body is healing now, not breaking down."_

_"Banner, he just went on a murdering rampage after I had spent two days telling him that life could be different. It's not his body I'm worried about now."_

_"Do you think I don't understand how it feels to be capable of something like that?"_

_"Are you saying he'll get over it?"_

_"No. But he'll adapt. Human beings are amazingly adaptable."_

_"He should never have had to adapt to this."_

_"You have a very large problem accepting things the way that they are rather than how you want them to be."_

_"That's what Fury tells me all the time."_

_"Maybe Fury goes to the opposite extreme. But you need to watch your use of the word 'should'. Any time you use it, you're delving into fantasy. And fantasy does not help."_

_"Then what helps?"_

_"Acceptance."_

_"I should accept what they turned him into?"_

_"If that means accepting him as he is now, not as he was, then yeah. You need to accept that. Because he needs you. You may be the only person on earth he even cares about anymore."_

* * *

Bucky slept fitfully through the day and then into the night, frequently waking up from nightmares that Steve only got flickers of in his thoughts: darkness, blood, and pain.

At around midnight, utterly exhausted, Steve did the only thing he could think of to calm his friend down. He laid down beside Bucky and spooned him, holding Bucky tightly. Bucky slowly stopped trembling and muttering. He stilled. Steve fell asleep with his nose buried in Bucky's hair, the smell bringing back memories of sleeping next to each other as kids, wrestling for the blanket. Every time he found a memory, he silently passed it to Bucky.

Steve woke up at 5am the next morning when he felt Bucky move in his arms. "What is it?"

Bucky gently extricated himself and sat up, turning to look at Steve. His eyes were calm, but intent. "I have something to do."

Steve shared his gaze for a moment and then nodded. "Then we should go."

They crept away from the cave without alerting any of the others. Steve guessed that this was something Bucky didn't want to do with too many witnesses; he wondered what he was about to see.

The laboratory was deep in the ground, not far from the smoking remains of SHIELD Headquarters. The area was crawling with law enforcement. Steve and Bucky slipped past them like shadows. There was a garage next to a park two blocks away. Bucky led Steve inside and down to the bottom level, where he pressed a disguised panel in the wall. An elevator appeared, and they descended.

Steve looked around at a room green with lights and studded with equipment. It was abandoned. He looked at the banks of servers embedded in the wall, and wondered if they contained copies of Bucky's memories. He felt a sudden urge to tear them out of the wall and smash them. Then his eyes fell on the chair.

He walked toward it... a chair, fitted with buckles and clamps, clearly intended to hold a single person in one place. Around it was a black loop of metal and plastic with two rounded cups, roughly the shape and size of a human head. Steve tried to imagine how it was used. Then Bucky put a hand on his shoulder, and gave him a memory.

_... screaming..._

Steve shuddered hard, and broke away. He turned to look at Bucky, and their eyes held the same expression.

Bucky reached out with his metal hand and tore off one of the head pieces. His hand flexed, metal and plastic and wires shrieking as he crushed it. He fell to one knee, and slammed the remains into the floor until they were nothing but fragments.

Steve used his shield to knock the other head piece off, catching it and handing it to Bucky for the same treatment. Bucky pounded it to powder.

They moved through the room slowly and deliberately, first destroying the chair and its peripheral control units, then handling the servers embedded in the walls. Steve yanked them out and smashed them with his shield; Bucky used his hands. It took them over an hour to destroy the entire room.

In the corner was the freezer. It was thick-walled and solid, too heavy and big to tear up. Steve pried up the lid and gently laid a hand on the cold surface of the hard plank inside where Bucky had lain as they froze him.

Steve shared a look with Bucky, and their minds met with absolutely no hesitation or friction, perfectly in harmony with each other. They left the room. As they walked down the hall, Bucky threw a grenade over his shoulder. Steve shielded them both from the blast.

They went back out into the sunlight.

Bucky took three steps and went down, falling to his knees in the grass. Steve knelt beside him and put a hand on his shoulder. "It's over, Bucky."

Bucky breathed in and out, harshly, and tried to speak several times before words would come out. "That was my home."

"We'll find a new one." Steve sat down in the grass. "Your home is with me, now."

"Til the end of the line."

"You got it." Steve picked at the grass, tearing up a few blades of it with his fingertips. "I think I may need a new apartment. We probably need more space, and anyway there are bullet holes in my wall."

"Sorry about that."

"Where would you like to live, Bucky?"

Bucky considered for a moment. "I honestly don't care. Wherever you live."

"I should probably stick close by here for whatever we decide to build in place of SHIELD."

"Then here we stay."

"How do you feel, buddy?"

"I'm okay. Better."

Steve tied two of the grass strands together. "How about something to eat? I'm starving. You?"

Bucky looked at him. "I could eat."

They didn't move.

Steve tore up a few more blades of grass, and started braiding them together. He could feel Bucky beside him, a solid, warm presence, glowing and alive in the sunlight that was shining down generously on them. He glanced at Bucky, who was looking at him steadily. The light turned his blue eyes to the color of the sky, pale and clear.

_Bucky...?_

_Yes. I want to._

Their first kiss was awkward. It couldn't not be; confusion warring with desire and hope, lack of practice, an anxiety that was amplified by the fact that they could feel it in each other. Their lips met and didn't move for a moment, neither of them quite knowing what to do. No kiss had ever mattered so much.

Then Bucky's lips parted, and he sighed. It was a surrender of sorts. It was enough. Steve leaned forward and held the back of Bucky's head, running his fingers up into Bucky's hair and he took what was offered. What he felt was unfamiliar to him. It wasn't like ordinary lust. It was a taut, dark hunger, expressing itself in his mouth and tongue. He wanted to taste the man beside him, wanted him as much as possible, wanted... he felt Bucky respond, and it was almost too much. He drew back.

Bucky threw back his head and laughed, falling back on the grass, letting his arms rest easily above his head. The hem of his shirt rose, revealing the lines of his stomach. Steve let himself truly look for the first time. He smiled. "Was it that bad?"

"No. No, it wasn't bad." Bucky was still grinning. He seemed a little short of breath.

Steve fell back on the grass beside him, squinting up at a sky too bright to look at. He rolled to his side toward Bucky, and ran one fingertip slowly down the scales of Bucky's arm. They flexed in the wake of his touch, almost like trembling skin. He felt a sudden helplessness. "Now what?"

Bucky pushed himself up on his elbows. "Now, we make more memories."

Steve realized he was short of breath as well.

Their first time (as adults, at least) was beside a tree in a park meadow, hidden and shaded from prying eyes but still open enough to give them both a thrill of dark excitement, the chance of being found out. It was still early in the morning.

Steve kissed Bucky again and again, getting better at it each time, and then Bucky pulled off his shirt and Steve followed the path of revealed skin with his hands before taking off his own.

_Show me._

Bucky opened his pants. There was a tiny wet place on his boxers (Steve's boxers, still), and Steve reached down and traced the outline of Bucky's erection with his fingers. He felt more than heard Bucky's reaction, and froze as it echoed through his own body. _Show me._

Bucky reached down and pulled himself out, and began to stroke himself, letting Steve watch him, watching Steve learn how best to touch him.

The first time was only hands, touching themselves and then each other, each touch amplified by the connection their minds and souls shared.

Steve kissed Bucky again and again, the two of them on their knees now, their arms tangling together, muscles bunching and releasing and rubbing against each other as they stroked each other, too hard and too fast because it was too good to stop. Bucky could only use one hand, so he used his metal arm to hold onto Steve's shoulders and brace their bodies against each other. Their kisses became rougher, hungrier, they tried to keep quiet in the stillness of the morning but it was too good, they couldn't stop, and when a soft sound left Bucky's mouth, Steve felt his hips begin to thrust into Bucky's hands and they couldn't stop, they didn't stop until they were both gasping for breath and Bucky bit Steve's shoulder as he released himself into Steve's waiting hands, carrying Steve with him. Steve threw his head back, trying not to cry out, a growling sound emerging from deep in his throat as he came.

It was awkward and messy and perfect, and they collapsed, hot ejaculate smeared on their bellies, sweat bursting out all over their skin. The morning air chilled it as they kissed each other again, exhausted and laughing, struggling to get back into their clothes. They couldn't stop kissing each other. Bucky had grass tangled in his hair, and his skin was glowing.

Steve fell back onto the grass, panting. He felt completely limp. "Maybe we should have eaten first."

Bucky gasped a laugh. "What, two supermen like us?"

"I don't feel like Superman, I feel like a string of cooked pasta. I don't think I can move."

"Come on. On your feet, soldier." Bucky sat up. "They'll all be waking up soon and wondering where the hell we are."

Steve struggled to sit up. "Carry me."

Bucky started laughing, and then they were both laughing. It didn't matter if someone heard them. Not anymore.

"Um, Bucky, where did I leave my shield?"


	13. Chapter 13

_"So, you've experienced this sort of thing before."_

_"You get used to it."_

_"We've been data-mining Hydra's files. Looks like a lot of rats didn't go down with the ship. I'm headed to Europe tonight. Wanted to ask if you and Bucky would join me."_

_"Maybe someday, Fury. Today is not that day."_

* * *

No matter how much good he did in the world, no matter how many people he saved, Steve couldn't deny the essential truth that his life was violent and bloody a significant amount of the time. Stark, Natasha, Banner, Fury, all of them dealt with this every day. Death was a large part of who they were and what they did. They justified it in the name of saving more lives than they were destroying. But it was a hard equation to work out, some days. Some days it didn't work out at all.

But it was different for Bucky. He'd been used, he'd had no choice. He had killed the good, in service of evil. He had been repeatedly and viciously broken by it. For him, hero work was forever tainted.

At least, that was what Steve thought. Unaccountably, Bucky fought him on the issue.

"Steve, look at me. Think about my life. What am I going to be, if not a killer?" They were sitting on boxes in Steve's new living room, taking a break from unpacking. Random items were scattered haphazardly through the apartment.

Steve frowned. "You can be anything you want to be."

"Well, back when I was normal, what I wanted to be was a soldier." Bucky gave Steve his smirking half-smile, the one Steve had seen so many times in the old days.

"You don't have to be one, though."

"I can give you one very good reason why I have to be. Because you are, and I refuse to let you go and pick fights with the biggest baddest guys in the universe without me to watch your back for you. The way we used to be, fighting side by side."

Steve swallowed hard. "Bucky, I can't... I can't... let you do that."

"Ignoring the fact that you can't stop me, why can't you?"

Steve looked down. "I can't see you, feel you, broken again. I can't do it."

"Then you watch my back, too, and make sure it doesn't happen."

Steve tried to think of a way to argue. The fact was, Bucky had a point, but Steve didn't know if he could handle Bucky killing anymore.

Bucky touched Steve's shoulder. "I'm getting better every day. You know that. I don't go into trances anymore, I don't wake up in the night."

"But if you kill again..."

"I may freak out, yeah. That just means I have more of a reason to protect life than most of you. I don't see how that's a bad thing."

"I guess we could use more heroes who have a problem with killing people." Steve sat in silence for a moment. "I just can't lose you again. You know, if we didn't share the link, I could never have found you. I would have thought that you were dead."

"You would have found me eventually."

"How can you know that?"

Bucky stood up and went to Steve, pulling him to his feet. He held Steve's hands and looked into his eyes. "What we have is more than telepathy. I'm not myself without you, and I think it's the same way for you. I think we would love each other even without the link. I know it's not the link for me. I don't need the link to tell me who you are... I already know that, because of what you do and how you live. I don't need the link to love you... I just goddamn love you."

"I... I love you too. I don't know why it's so much harder to say than it used to be."

"Because when you were saying it before, it was because I needed to hear it. I don't anymore. I'm with you. I can feel it. I know. Now is when you need to hear it from me instead. I love you, Steve. We're gonna be together for a very long time, and I don't want to miss a second of it by sitting around at home while you go off and have adventures. I'm with you. That's how I stay." Before Steve could reply, Bucky put a finger on Steve's lips and shushed him gently. "I'm with you, pal." Bucky smiled, and pulled Steve close.

Steve felt his body responding, rendering all of his arguments moot. "You know something? You can be a real jerk sometimes."

"Oh, see, I have to _force_ you to say it now." Bucky grinned. "Let's see... how can I do that..." He pushed Steve down onto a pile of unpacked blankets and started kissing him, softly and then harder.

Steve tried to hold back, but Bucky's skills were growing as time went on, and their link ensured that he knew everything that Steve felt as he worked on him...

_I love you. I love you. I love you._

_It's going to be okay, now. Everything is going to be okay._

_Fin_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am crying with gratitude right now. This fic broke a writer's block that has lasted for two years. Thank you so much for reading and enjoying, and I hope to be writing again very soon!


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